Italian FNA-B43

The FNA-B43 (Fabbrica Nazionale d’Armie) was developed in Brescia, Italy during World War II. The Beretta M38 series of submachine guns were serving very well, but the volume of guns demanded by the war allowed the opportunity for other companies and designs to get a foot in the door, and the FNA-B43 was one of these. It is a sophisticated and effective design, but expensive to manufacture (those two attributes so often go together).

Italian FNA-B43 submachine gun

The FNA-B43 is a sturdy and well-constructed gun, made of machined components and not stampings. The gun is designed with ease of carry in mind, with a folding stock and a pivoting magazine well. This allows the gun to be easily transported with a full 40-round magazine in place (it uses standard Beretta M38 magazines) without being bulky or risking accidental discharge. It uses lever-delayed bolt design which is very effective (and fires from the closed position) but time-consuming and expensive to manufacture.

FNA-B43 bolt

The pair of levers force the rear part of the bolt to move before the front part can, thus delaying extraction of the fired cartridge until after pressure has dropped to a safe level. It also slowed the rate of fire down from that of typical blowback submachine guns to a very controllable 400 rounds per minute.

Roughly 7000 of these guns were built and issued to Italian and German forces before production ceased. They were ultimately just too expensive to justify, which is unfortunate because the design is a good one.

4 comments to Italian FNA-B43

You know, I always love intricate designs like this being a gun wonk. At the same time I have to question the logic behind producing something like this during wartime. I’ve always wondered how the G3 series of rifles, with their roller delayed blowback system, would stand up under long term war conditions considering their proclivity for being sensitive to ammunition and having finely machined parts. I think one of the reasons why so many militaries have gone toward gas-driven, rotating bolt type guns is ease of production on normal mills and lathes. Same reason why a lot of early personal weapons were a gas operated tilting bolt arrangement. They also tend to care less about what’s put in them as long as it has enough power to cycle the action. Of course, submachineguns generally care less anyway but the nicely milled bolt on this Maserati brought up these thoughts again.